#12 - The total number of book titles published annually in

[rneuman123@gmail.com]

I have tried to figure out this question and I just can't see it. I think I see how D can be known. Is it because at one point, in earlier years, t.v hadn't caused a decline in books sold but an increase, and today it causes a decrease so we can know that it doesn't always cause a decline? I'm struggling to see what is wrong with C, though.

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi rneuman,

D must be true because we're told that titles published and sales went up, so in at least this one instance, the availability of TV did not reduce these two things.

C, on the other hand, is probably false based on the argument. We know that sales of new titles rapidly increased, but now the increase has slowed, which suggests that sales are still increasing, just at a slower rate. If that's true, then likely more copies per title are being sold now than in the early days of TV, just not as many more as if the rate of increase had stayed so high.

Hope that helps!

[EmilyLSAT22]

Hi,

When I first approached this question, I chose E and quickly discarded D because I thought the stimulus was saying that when television was first introduced, the number of book titles increased, but lately, there has been a decline. Meaning, that as television has become more popular, less people have been buying books, but when television was just being introduced, the books being published soared. I realize I may have attacked and read the stimulus all wrong. How do You suggest I go about interpreting/reading this stimulus?

Thank you.

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi Emily,

I think you're reading too much into the stimulus, here. The "rate of increase" has slowed, which means retail sales of new titles is still going up (still increasing), just not as rapidly as before. See if that reading of it makes E make more sense, and let us know if you still have questions about it!

[lsacgals101]

Hi,

I understand why D is correct, but am struggling to understand why E is wrong. Could you help me see why it's incorrect?

Thanks!

[mguitard]

Hi,

I understand now why D is correct, but, I'm still having a hard time understanding why C is incorrect.
C states, "book publishers in North America now sell fewer copies per title than they sold in the early days of television." The stimulus poses that retail sales of books quadrupled, and have since lowered. While they may still be increasing overall, they are decreasing in sales since the early days of the television.

Thanks!

[KelseyWoods]

Hi lsacgals101 and mguitard!

Here's what we know from the stimulus:

1.) The total number of book titles published annually has quadrupled since introduction of TV.
2.) Sales of new titles rapidly increased when TV was first released, but the rate of increase has slowed in recent years.
3.) Library circulation has been flat or declining in recent years.

We are looking for something that we can prove with the information above.

Answer choice (E) is incorrect because we cannot prove a causal argument based on data which is more about a correlation. We know that the number of titles and sales of those new titles have increased since TV was introduced. But we have no idea whether TV is responsible for expanding the book market. The increase in book sales and the introduction of TV could have just been a coincidence. Or perhaps both of these things were caused by an increase in leisure time over the years. We cannot prove that TV is what caused the expansion of the book market.

Answer choice (C) is incorrect because the information in the stimulus is about the rate of increase. Sales of new titles (as measured in copies) have been increasing since the early days of television, it's just the rate of that increase that has changed. So in the early days, maybe they were increasing by 25% each year, but now they're only increasing by 10% each year. But they've always been going up. So that means that they are still selling more copies per title than they did in the early days of television.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[Capetowner]

Why is D not meaning "not both". I know this is bringing up another question but it's directly related to this concept. I have pasted an answer choice from PT 54, Section 2, Question 18, Answer Choice B.

To ensure that one has impartially considered
the evidence regarding an issue on which one
has taken a strong position, one should avoid
misinterpreting or ignoring evidence
regarding that issue.

In bold, we see how this means "not both"

Yet in this question's Answer D, "does not" seems to function differently in that it leads to a "at least one does not happen" scenario, which still permits one to happen.

Why does "avoid" function differently than "does not" in this example?

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Capetowner,

I think that you may be missing the difference between these two statements. The words "either/or" (or just the word "or") on the LSAT mean "at least one, possibly both." If statement means "but not both," that will need to be stated. This is different than how these words are often used in everyday life.

The word "avoid" has no bearing on whether or not both of the terms can happen. For example, in the statement "To prevent car accidents, you should avoid speeding or running red lights," both of these are possible.

However, certain options have an implied "not both" due to the fact they are mutually exclusive.

In your example, "avoid misinterpreting or ignoring evidence regarding that issue," the only reason that "not both" is implied is that the two terms are mutually exclusive. In other words, one cannot both misinterpret and ignore evidence at the same time. To misinterpret evidence requires using the evidence (even if incorrectly), which is the opposite of ignoring evidence. In a similar way, the statement "you are either dead or alive" implies "not both" because these are opposite terms.